I sketch a graceful hand, then try to conjure eyes of blue and green and bronze despite the monochromatic capabilities of my mechanical pencil. Next a dragon takes shape, his wings sweeping across the page. Wisps of smoke curl from his nostrils as he looks eagerly upon a trough of Taco Bell hot sauce. I add a sprig of cilantro poking out of one side because it seems like the sort of detail Zoe would appreciate.

I am losing my quacking mind.

Tonight’s homework is going to be a real problem, and destroying the perfect grades I spent all of high school maintaining isn’t an option. Thank the USS Enterprise I have Will, who got a head start on AP Calculus this past summer “for fun.”

I text Will before the bell rings to signal the start of last period.

Study tonight? Willing to trade pb barfs for calc help.

As the sticky patina on his video game controllers can attest, Will is powerless in the face of my “peanut butter barfs,” which are basically just cereal blobs held together with a candied mix of peanut butter and corn syrup. They’re messy and asymmetrical, aka kryptonite to my mom, but fast enough to make that I can be in and out of the kitchen before she gets home. However, Will doesn’t respond until school is out and I’ve walked most of the way home.

Sorry, I can’t. Kitty and I are getting hot dogs tonight.

Wow, another date already? I push aside the tingle of worry trying to rise. He wouldn’t give up our standing game time on Sundays, even for Kitty . . . would he? Sometimes it’s the only thing I have to look forward to.

Me: Is that a euphemism?

Ha ha ha, perv, he says.

I text: Have fun, but don’t stick your USB into her slot on the second date.

STOP NOW OMG! he replies.

I laugh a little because I know I made him blush, but something aches in me too. After eight years of friendship, I’ve seen him through a lot of hopeless crushes. He usually pines after girls who look like the real-life incarnations of elves and princesses from our video games minus the impractical fantasy armor and swords held in suggestive ways. Or girls like Zoe — completely unattainable. But now that he’s got a real date that’s going somewhere, and all I’ve got to do tonight is a huge pile of math homework, my solitude has dimensions much larger than I’m used to. Still, I want him to be happy.

When I get home and open the front door to the house, I don’t even get my shoes off before a thump from upstairs makes me jump half a mile. I drop my bag in surprise, and it hits the floor with earth-shaking force more appropriate to Mjolnir.

“Mom?” I call tentatively.